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Comment by spiderfarmer | Hacker News Reader

I am from the Netherlands and I have to say that regretably a large part of our country thinks that our farmers are incompetent, stupid, nature-hating animal bashers because of how the media treats them.

It's gross how strong the lobby is against our farmers, even though they're clearly among the most competent, intelligent, sustainable farmers around the world.

They always use cherry-picked facts (and even blatant lies), decades old photo and video materials and examples from foreign farms against our farmers, in order to put pressure on the government to regulate our farmers even more, to the point where our farmers feel that they are nothing more than underpaid workers for a huge governmental organization.

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From the article: " This high-tech broiler house holds up to 150,000 birds, from hatching to harvesting"

No 'decades old photo' either. I find it hard to believe someone loving live animals would put them in such a place.

Funny, looking at the associated picture tells me a different story. Look at how uncrowded the chicks are and how much free space to move they have, and compare with US where they are so packed together that they can't even turn in place.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/magazine/right...

There are two types of chickens: the ones grown for their meat, and the ones grown for their eggs (I'm not aware of the English terminology on either).

There have been campaigns for both types of chicken to improve their quality of life. Here in NL they were conducted by an NGO called Wakker Dier. There's the campaign against the 'plofkip' (huge chicks who are unable to move, and are force fed) so that grocery stores quit selling these. Then for the sale of eggs (itself harmless for chickens, if unfertilized eggs, and if chickens are treated without abuse) there's a star system ranging from 1 ('kooi') [1], 2 ('scharrelei') till 3 ('vrije uitloop'). Note that this system says nothing about their diet. Now, if you'd translate 2 and 3, you'd both end up with 'free range'. This Wikipedia article on free range [2] explains the EU has strict rules on that term, while the US does not. Its worth noting that due to campaigns of Wakker Dier eggs of type 1 are almost never sold anymore directly, but they are still being widely used within products! If not, they will mention the name of type 2 and 3 ('scharrel-ei' usually or more uncommon in the case of products 'vrije uitloop ei' otherwise).

Regarding the picture you linked if that is from NL, that might very well either be accurate due to fipronil scandal [3] (millions of chickens were killed due to that hence near empty cages), or otherwise a propaganda picture.

Its very important to be critical of farmers. They're treating thousands upon thousands of animals with various degrees of treatment (from loving/caring to downright abuse), as well as affecting our soil (as in, "the inhabitants of Earth's" which also makes sense since our soil is deeply connected with the rest of Earth's ecosystem as well as literally your neighbors's soil).

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Eisen_ko...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-range_eggs

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Fipronil_eggs_contaminati...

>Its very important to be critical of farmers.

I've always felt that it's a bit ironic for people consuming animal products to be critical of breeders. Kinda passing responsibilities on them so tadaaa ! No more consumer guilt.

If you really want to reduce animal exploitation and world GHG emission, cut down your consumption instead of putting even more pressure on producers without accepting to get more money out of your pocket for products. Because generally speaking, people don't want to spend more money on food, as there is so much other essential trash to buy. To each his priorities...

> I've always felt that it's a bit ironic for people consuming animal products to be critical of breeders. Kinda passing responsibilities on them so tadaaa ! No more consumer guilt.

Its relative, not absolute, and history teaches us we need to be critical of farmers. The recent fipronil scandal only underlines that. Our government failed as well, don't get me wrong.

If you want to reduce harm done to sentient beings (or animals with a CNS) there are many ways to achieve that. Yes, the best way would be going vegan overnight, but that is tough for an individual and quite unrealistic to achieve society-wise. Right now, we are better off reducing meat consumption (ie. via 'meatless monday' initiative) since we don't need to consume that much meat to begin with. If you eat less meat, you can use that money to eat quality meat. Eventually we can irregularly eat lab meat. So, yes, we should be critical to ourselves as well. But that's a different, and very complex discussion (I'm on a Facebook group where this is the main subject, finding the grey between the two extremes and supporting each other).

(Also as a side note there are some non-animal products which are rather bad for GHG emission, btw.)

All I'm saying is that it's not important to be critical of farmers but of consumers. Were there not so much demand for cheap animal products, all these problems would not be there. Almost every breeder I've met enjoys caring for its animals, but the harsh truth is that a farm is a business and most decisions are money-based, and also that time is crucially limited (can't spend 2 hours everyday for weeks caring for one single animal).

The recent fipronil scandal I'm not especially hostile to. It's like the horse meat thing, no risk for the consumer, it's simple fraud from the antiparasitics producer afaik and not latent farmer malignancy. You're way more exposed if you use antiflea products on your pets... And fipronil is really low risk for mammals overall. Oh, and of course this was in the cheap industry side of laying hens, so your wallet could vote on this beforehand.

Yet people still don't want to spend more on food. Most already shop first price, its just not a priority when you need to get a new phone and other stupid stuff. And this is the exact kind of consumer who can leisurely insist that we need to be critical of farmers. Oh, the irony. Sweep before your own door, you know.

But good on you, I hope your taking part in this Facebook group (probably known for it's high scientific and intellectual qualities, as everything that is on facebook) is comforting enough that you don't have to drastically change your consuming and behavior (and chronically, as "scandals" break out, underlines that farmers have a HUGE responsability in this), because what a shame that would be.

Ah, so farmers never can do good. And when they do good, it's an "propaganda picture".

I gave two plausible options each explaining the picture. I find both of those explanations more plausible than tons of empty cages. YMMV.

I never said farmers are 'evil' people. Farmers can do good (and if you read my post well you'd have seen my examples), but we live in a capitalist world where profit is an important factor, if not the most important factor. So we need others to force the farmers to keep checks and balances: consumers, NGOs, and the government. Case in point: the fipronil scandal, where ChickFriend was a cheap solution to a problem, and where the government (NVWA) failed to look into an anonymous tip in november 2016. If they did, we'd have a lot less economic damage as well as less potential health damage. Another example is as I explained how Wakker Dier's campaign stimulated the sales of free range eggs of type 2 and 3 (although first and foremost in fresh eggs; not products containing eggs), and how they managed to reduce the amount of 'plofkip' in grocery store.

There was no potential health damage. The biggest scandal is how such a small issue was made this big by everyone involved. Read up on it. You can swallow 10.000.000 times as much fipronil as maximally allowed and still walk home from the hospital.

Putting the blame on the farmers is wrong too. How on earth could they have known that what the cleaning company used was illegal?

Just because one solution is slightly less ghastly does not make it friendly.

It seems strange to point out how well you are treating an animal when you are slaughtering it for consumption in the end. In fact that is the animal's only purpose of existence.

I think you look for purpose where there is little. What's the purpose of an animal living in the wild? Ecologists would say eat or be eaten, thrive, multiply.

From an evolutionary point of view you could say that cows, chickens, pigs (and cats, dogs, horses) are one of the most successful animals, exactly because we eat (or pet) them.

Maybe I, like all my predecessors, am not yet 'evolved' enough to give up on eating meat. In the meantime I like the fact that the animals are growing up disease free in relatively humane conditions.

It's not about being evolved enough, whatever that means. Eating meat is a conscious choice. Humans can do without meat. We are omnivores, not carnivores.

I mean yes, in the grand scheme of things, treating animals well before slaughtering them is better than treating them poorly, but it misses the forest for the trees.

I would be highly surprised if in 100 years we'll still do this.

It's only a matter of time until lab-grown meat is as good and cheap as the original, and then society will turn. Eating real animals will be something like hunting is now, a tiny thing and with huge image costs.

Hunting has huge image costs where you live? Are you sure it's not just inside your specific bubble?

I'm fairly sure hunting is declining in all of the western world.

As anecdata, consider the outlawing of fox hunting in UK, declining hunting love in France[0], and a similar decline in the US[1].

The more hunting becomes unusual, the higher the number of people who will consider it in negative light compared to those who view it favourably.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37865215 [1] http://deerfarmer.com/wiki/hunting-decline

You should've spent more time sourcing that last claim, considering it was by and large the most bold one.

Furthermore, whilst it may not be obvious in activist circles, seeing the topic was about eating animal produce, the obvious counterpart in hunting would be game animals, and not a sport (which fox hunting is, more or less). My (unsourced) guess would be that most non-vegetarians do not condemn hunting, and it would also be a somewhat hypocritical stance. Furthermore, meat consumption isn't exactly on declining in the world, but you can make your own conclusions about that.

(I'm a city dweller, and haven't hunted anything in my life. I'm not saying that to validate my opinion, but regardless I know quite a bit about the realities of hunting that probably apply to most places, and the reason it is in decline may well not be because of a shift in the moral landscape. It is a consuming hobby, but that doesn't in itself imply that all non-hunters would automatically start to disapprove it more and more.)

sorry, I should have phrased it better, I don't mean that hunting is declining because of moral reasons, I mean that as it declines and people grow more detached from it it will be considered more morally reprehensible.

It is obviously an opinion not a fact, but as an example, you can consider the attitude of people to eating animals that they ate in the past and not now (porcupine, turtle, cat, dog).

Not only it's considered disgusting, but it's often considered worse than eating other animals.

If you, by choice, never killed an animal, I absolutely respect that, but society is not ready to draw the line at the same height as you.

I'm hoping to some day keep my own animals, to find out how the sausage gets made. I want to face the reality behind the sterile, bloodless chicken fillet I eat, and my apathy to animals.

Perhaps that will convince me to stop eating meat. Meanwhile I have bigger worries.

Flesh of an unstressed animal tastes better.

I can dig the exact page from On Food and Cooking for reference if needed.

Although I always believed that was true, I started having doubts when I saw "Topchef" candidates having trouble distinguishing cow and pig meat when blindfolded.

Stress should be avoided, don't get me wrong, but I don't think our tastebuds are this advanced.

"In fact that is the animal's only purpose of existence."

From the farmers point of view.

> I find it hard to believe someone loving live animals would put them in such a place.

I read the parent post as a statement on production and media representation. I didn't see any claim about farmers loving animals. I'm sure many do, but your argument is addressing something different.

I love animals. I eat meat. I want humane treatment of animals when they are bred for consumption. I know this is frequently not the case. But this is a different cause than what parent post addresses (aside from the 'decades old' bit about photos, which I am not qualified to address as someone outside the Netherlands).

> large part of our country thinks that our farmers are incompetent, stupid, nature-hating animal bashers

Animal bashing is not something farmers do.

Most farmers do literally bash the animals before slaughtering them[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol

I am talking about Dutch farmers. This is exactly what I mean. For example, early this year Dutch farmers had to explain themselves for something that happened in a Belgian slaughterhouse.

Do you like it when your mother blames you for bugs in her printer's Windows driver?

What did the Netherlands had to do with this? The only thing I know is that done Dutch people sold illegal medecine to Belgian farmers and the Dutch were informed, but didn't alert Belgium

That's what they had to explain, because it endangered the did supply

You are talking about different things.

What spiderfarmer is talking about is a scandal in a Belgian slaughterhouse, where animals were being abused. This was filmed[1] by an animal rights organization, sparking outrage.

What you are talking about is the Fipronil scandal[2]. A Belgian company, Poultry-Vision, bought Fipronil from Romania and mixed it with DEGA-16. A Dutch company, Chickfriend, bought the mixture and knowingly used it to clean hundreds of farms.

[1]: Warning, shocking imagery: https://vimeo.com/209349326

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Fipronil_eggs_contaminati...

But what did (1) had to do with the Netherlands?

(2) was the only link I knew, so I was aware that I probably talked about something else. If I'm not mistaking, Poultry Vision didn't deliver to farms in the food sector, while Chickfriend did ( chicken farms) -> illegal

(1) Nothing. But that doesn't stop activists from bashing Dutch farmers:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/opinie/de-vee-industrie-is-de-grot...

This is exactly what happens in our media. All facts are useless because the farmer doesn't put same value on an animal's life as the hipster from the city who has distanced himself from nature more than humans should.

Look at the bird density. They aren't packed in there in the slightest. Have you studied chicken raising? Do you have a better system? Do you really love all live animals or just intellectually love them and feel empathy when one is mistreated?

For animal rights activists there is no acceptable way to keep an animal. They want to regulate farms until it's economically impossible to produce meat (from living animals). I get that, but in my view nature is brutal and I have no problem killing an animal for a nice BBQ. Who is closer to nature?

For as long as there have been humans, they have made every effort possible to get away from nature.

(I didn't come up with that joke. Gaiman and Pratchett did.)

Yes, because nature isn't your friend and is completely indifferent to your pain, suffering, and existence.

It's easy to fetishize and "love" nature while we sit in our climate controlled boxes looking at pictures of the 1% most scenic sites in the world.

This is simply untrue. You can try spending some time having an actual conversation with real animal rights activists, you might find out that they're real nuanced people (just like you, hopefully).

That’s a “no true Scotsman” argument if ever I’ve heard one!

> Who is closer to nature?

It is not a competition.

It is a difference of opinion.

These 150.000 birds are getting much better care from this single farmer than when they were spread over 10.000 households like they were 100 years ago.

Citation needed. Having a dozen chicken in a large yard seems to me to be pretty nice for the chicken.

Out of curiosity, do you genuinely believe there is a citation out there relating to the treatment of chickens on this farm today vs. treatment of chickens on 10000 small household farms 100 years ago?

It comes across as though you are demanding impossible standards of evidence here in order to cut off a side of an argument you don't agree with, and don't want to begin to consider?

"Citation needed" is not a universally acceptable reflexive alternative to discussion of things you don't personally agree with.

> Having a dozen chicken in a large yard seems to me to be pretty nice for the chicken.

Citation needed.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a paper that compares traditional methods of raising chicken to modern ones. But for the purposes of Internet discussion I would be satisfied with a convincing anecdote.

Rats, foxes and dozens of other meat eating predators would thoroughly enjoy the 10.000 unprotected henhouses.

Bird flu has been a big problem historically because of the large amount chickens in urban areas, although it had different names then. It's still a problem now, but it's now only spread by migrating birds.

When it comes to diseases. Do you think 10.000 amateur farmers know all ins and outs of chicken diseases as well as the professional chicken farmer?

And do you think they are more exposed to diseases in a farm with hygenic corridors or in someones backyard?

You forget that nature is brutal. http://www.livingthecountrylife.com/animals/poultry/10-poult...

Hmm, I am from the Netherlands too. Not sure which media and lobby against farmers you're exactly referring to. Who would be putting up this lobby and to what ends?

Now I know that there is a big lobby in favour of agriculture in the Netherlands, that is highly successful and had basically a political party in its pocket up until the mid-90s - the CDA, you might want to google Gerrit Braks for example. This lobby was one of the enablers of the rise of the high-tech agri-cultural industry in the Netherlands as we know it today.

This piece, from a foreign media outlet is the only positive story about Dutch agriculture I saw in nearly a month. The last one was about how little antibiotics we use compared to the rest of the world.

Stories about how our farmers are bad? Missed the whole fipronil hype that completely unsubstantiated?

Talk to a farmer. Ask him who speaks for him nowadays. The lobby is "doodgepoldert". There is none.

Check how the NPO, Wakker Dier, Pvdd, Milieudefensie and Greenpeace are connected and you'll see the size of that lobby.

I'd like a quote on the NPO there. That is a public non-partisan institution.

The links are quite clear and they are proudly advertising it.

https://www.nieuweoogst.nu/nieuws/2017/01/19/objectieve-jour...

That reads more like propaganda than anything I've ever seen come out of the NOS.

It is however interesting that there is overlap between stichting wakker dier membership and producers of NPO shows. Moreover it is very worrying that Diederik Stapel has any public advisory function. I wouldn't call this 'evidence of close organizational ties' though.

Calling modern farmers most competent , intelligent, sustainable is an interesting point of view. Agreed it's very hard to blame the farmers because few would survive not scaling out in the current system. Farming tech is far from sustainable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsoil#Erosion

And vertical farming, hydroponics is cool tech and RGB LED's are cool to increase size, weight etc for increased profits. None of that has a positive influence on sustainability.

There a new phenomenon btw called Herenboeren, http://www.herenboeren.nl/, basically crowdfunding, for farmers. This is getting quite some attention. This at least gives me the impression that there's a bigger part of our country starting to see otherwise.

That Herenboeren initiative looks to me like feel-good rubbish, while at WUR issues like sustainability, erosion, etc. seem to me to be addressed in a much more thorough way.

You are misquoting me. On purpose?

Compare our farmers to the rest of the world. Study it. Please tell me in detail how they are not among the most intelligent, competent and sustainable.

Having the lowest standards on raising chickens in western Europe? Check.

Far longer allowed caged chicken raising than even Germany? Check.

No control at all over the raising process, leading to over a year of time before the fibronil scandal became public? Check.

They’re good farmers, but they’re not any better than the industry in other parts of western Europe.

If Photoshop has a couple of bugs, does that mean Microsoft is better than Adobe when it comes to photo editing software?

> And vertical farming, hydroponics is cool tech and RGB LED's are cool to increase size, weight etc for increased profits. None of that has a positive influence on sustainability.

Did you even bother to read the article? That has massive implications on the amount of water, energy and chemicals used.

Yeah read the article, and worked with hydroponics for a while. I choose not to eat food grown like this. Squeezing nature for yields is a sure way of depleting your resources. Factory farming like this in reality reduces nutrient levels. But hey I don't believe science is going to save the food chain. Which is why I'm taking my money elsewhere.

Regarding the story of feeding the world. How about the West changes their diet? We don't need to go all out right now on farming, we could fix obesity levels, healthcare cost, excess levels of waste before we need that. But that's not cool science, and there's a lot less profit to be made. So I guess that's not what's going to happen.

Generally, a lobby represents one body/industry. If it's working against a group (say, farmers) it's because it represents something else rather than is solely against farmers. In which case, you should be able to guess and identify the lobby from its attack pieces. It might be someone who stands to benefit from sales of pesticides, or an environmental group, etc.

I can't speak for the Netherlands, but in Australia, while there is an active and growing green movement, I would consider the industry-specific lobbying groups to be more successful at landing media pieces to influence the public. These would be lobbyists representing mining, banking, meat production, etc. This is usually because those industries are very well-funded and consolidated compared to environmental groups.

I don't know about that? "Boer zoekt vrouw" is incredibly popular. One of my listening exams for NT2 was a farmer giving an interview about his life which was very interesting. I have relatives here who grew up working in the greenhouses. I admittedly don't read much mainstream Dutch news, but I don't get this impression.

The one thing that jumps out if I think about Dutch farming and the news lately is the Fipronil incident. But even that was obviously one bad actor - however bad it is that it spread through so many farms and had such a large impact on Dutch farming.

There are some farms with bad reputations, but farming in general seems to do quite well here!

Well I might be ruined because I manage a large agricultural newsletter (for both farmers and nature lovers) so I see almost everything that's written (and said) about them.

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